anti-viral

I hate this feeling, where you're not sure if you're getting a cold or if you're just finally staring clearly down the black gaping maw of pointlessness that is human existence.

I hope it's just a cold.

working my way around the karmic wheel

If it's true that in my past life I was Marilyn Monroe, then the thing I'm getting in this life that I would have wished for in that one is to be appreciated for my mind rather than my body.

The thing I haven't worked out which may mean I might need to go back and repeat the sequence a few more million times is that now I want to be appreciated for my body as well.

I'm still her inside, people! But now with a Ph.D.!

Sometimes I think I don't deserve you

Earlier this week I burned the roof of my mouth on some pizza, but now it is healed.

Thank you, life.

There will be a special place in hell for tailgaters.

She was driving to work on a rainy morning, another morning of another long day in a long week. Running late, again, but driving carefully to avoid slipping in the car into a ditch, because being late was not as bad as that would be.

Frowning, listening to the first track of the CD come round again, approaching the first roundabout. She glances up by rote into her rear view mirror, which is filled, absolutely filled, with the giant black menacing grille of an oversized black truck. She starts at the sensation of this evil-looking vehicle roaring down upon her. She startles herself by starting to cry. They are tears she remembers from being seven, ten, school yard tears, tears from a tired school girl who doesn't have the reserves to deal with a schoolyard bully.

She feels this and realizes she feels it all in a second, speeds up to accomodate the bully and soon he turns and is past, but the realization of it, the awareness of the vulnerability makes her even sadder. Tears roll down as she takes the on ramp and gets up to speed on the highway. She realizes that everyone her life lately is just like the driver of that black menacing truck. She thinks, how can I do this? She pulls off the highway, pulls into a spot at the side of a building, tissues, eye drops. Goes in, buys Advil, the woman behind the cash register is smiley and chatty and generously friendly. She smiles and chats back, blames her weepy eyes and red nose on allergies. "Oh, at least you're not sick! How many are out today, June? One, two, three...four, four people are out." Take care, they say to each other as exits and gets back on her way. She is gathered together. She has collected herself back into a grown up working person and driver. She can do this.

Rain

Drove home tonight in heavy rain. Coming down like stripes in the sky, great washes of water over the roads, hard to see the painted lines that divide the lanes.

It made me really happy. Somehow a heavy rain was just the right thing. Driving in the wash and release of it, it occurred to me that maybe it's been a long time since we had any rain. Somehow tonight it made me happy and was a good fit.

Would be Dandy

I'd grab a phone
Just to call you up and say,
Quit your job,
Cause I got it made.

Anytime,
Baby let's go.
Everyday should be a holiday.

Experiment 1 - musical craftsmanship

This week the thing I'll add is getting up early to play scales on the guitar.

BTW, we're considering last week as baseline, starting from after my parents left after their visit. Call that a 4/10.

New Testament Democracy

So did I mention I've been going to church? No, don't worry, I haven't given up my fundamental values and metaphysical beliefs, but it's looking like this will work, coming back to my childhood institution, as a way to connect to my community and be of some benefit to them.

Anyway, so the bit that made me think today was in the Lessons before the sermon. It's a passage from the book of Mark, and this quote is 10:42-44 (is that freaking you out, having Bible passages quoted by chapter and verse here? Well, bear with me, I'm still not sure where all this is going.) :

42Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all."

I understand this to be about power relationships in a group of people. And it sounds good to me - that leaders must also serve, and members must also lead. I think that works for work teams, and for groups like churches, and also for giant things like democratic governments of powerful nations. I remember in the conversations before the last federal election in Australia a discussion about reclaiming the Left for Christian politicians - you don't have to be a family-values right wing (highly judgemental, hate-filled and divisive) Christian to be able to use your religious beliefs as a ground for your political service. New Testament Christians actually fit better with the principles of our democracy, that everyone is equally valuable and we should all do what we can to make sure every one of us is okay.

So, see, I already have the Lefty politics part of this, I already believe that stuff. I hope this helps make more sense of this recent strange turn of events in my life.

How could we be scientific about this?

Pre-experiment
Compile a list of hypotheses.
Rank them in terms of difficulty of implementation and estimate of potential benefit.
Lowest difficult + highest benefit is top priority, then descending from there.

Week 1 - Baseline
Do everything as you do.
At the end of the week assign a score out of 10.

Week 2 - Low Hanging Fruit
Implement just one change, the one that ranked highest of the priority score during the Pre-experiment phase.
At the end of this week assign a score out of 10.
- If higher than baseline, adopt change permanently.
- If lower than baseline, eliminate from list of options (optional - test NOT doing the thing as its own hypothesis on a different week, score again)
- If same as baseline, activity is optional hereon in.



So then the only question for me is, should this coming week be Baseline or Week 1?

I have wonderful friends

Another link, brought to my attention :-)

http://www.43folders.com/2009/08/04/enough

A quote:

"(M)ost people won’t notice if you don’t make something, and that a lot of people won’t particularly care if you do. But, how you choose to respond to that existential kōan will say a lot about your potential as both an artist and as an
engaged human.

Because, if you’re relieved that universal apathy provides legitimate cover for eight blissful hours of “managing email,” then you’re in luck. Every day for the rest of your life. Punch out.

But, if you’re like me, you may find you’re invigorated—even challenged—by all that bigger ambiguity. By knowing that, at any time, you might be seconds away from starting something amazing that seemed impossible a minute ago."

Little platitudelet from a self-help book I read a while ago

Bad things happen quickly, good things take a long time.

I'm thinking for example of a car accident (lives destroyed or ended altogether in a matter of seconds) vs. a really nice bottle of red wine (which can take years).

We can reverse it.

And another proactive message - this video posted by a Facebook friend.

The chair in the doorway

Another reference, from an interview in Guitar Player magazine with Vernon Reid from Living Color about the title of their new album, The Chair in the Doorway.

"It came out during the press we did for Collideoscope [their previous album]. Corey and I were in Paris waiting to do an interview and I said to him, 'You're always saying 'The chair's in the doorway.'' It's his way of saying there's a gorilla in the room...there's an obstruction there that no one's bothering to move. I love the title because it's both concrete and physical as something you envision but it's also abstract. A lot of the record talks about 'Why do we put up barriers in the way of our own progress?' and 'How do we get these things out of our way?'"

"Vernon Reid" by Anil Prasad, Guitar Player November 2009, page 31

Active

The universe has been sending me signals from all directions lately that I need to take action against my unhappiness and dissatisfaction and do something about it.

Probably started with Mom breaking the loop of me saying I can't meet anyone because the only gathering place in a small town is church, and I don't believe so that's not an option for me. She talked me into taking her when she was visiting, and in fact it turns out I knew five people there already, and it seems like it could actually work as a vehicle for service and connecting to my community (and getting some support for my grief and dislocation and unhappiness and dissatisfaction), even for a non-believer. I still believe in people, after all, and that's who goes to churches. And in love, as practice and behavior. So I'm trying that.

Then I had a very productive discussion with my new boss about my work plan and role definition, and also career aspirations. We were talking about some problem that really belongs to another department to solve, but that department has an open position for a head that hasn't been filled, so for now perhaps we should just go ahead and solve it. He quoted a mentor of his who always talked about being "in active" rather than "in passive" (or reactive or something or other, I forget the exact jargon). But basically his mentor advocated the principle of when you're dissatisfied to do something about it, don't just give up passively.

Then today I was driving and heard the end of an interview on the radio with two people. They were talking about happiness as an attitude, and about negative self-talk and how it can stunt action, and about negative beliefs and how they can show in behavior to the world even if you don't articulate them to yourself. Like, "I don't deserve adequate help at home from my partner," if you keep accepting the situation where you don't have it. Or "I don't deserve a raise, or better working conditions." They talked about, though, the powerful force of habit and familiarity, and that when you really decide you do need to take action it might require ending the relationship or putting lots of effort into working on it, and that's a scary place. But how if you don't take action happiness will be beyond your grasp.

I know that I need to live like this. I'm not sure how I got so, so beaten down - that I don't deserve things, and that I am not allowed to do anything. A bully for a boss at work, that will do it - but so thoroughly? And the love of one's life/man of one's dreams deciding, meh. But it's so pervasive now. I can't get my dishes done. There are all sorts of broken things in my house (the book says, "You are no longer a girl who keeps broken things!"), but I don't think I even believe that it's possible for me to deal with any of them.

How did it get this bad? But I'm taking small steps.

I turned off the TV and practiced singing, and worked out most of the melody of a very challenging song. I feel like singing is really coming along.

I spent at least a half hour on guitar, partly on scales, partly on songs, and I think I may have cracked the riddle of bending, or at least started to.

I started cleaning my bathroom, a little bit at a time. Sink last night. Shelves in the tub where the shampoo bottles were sitting this morning. Possibly the back of the shower curtain, or that bit right under the faucet tomorrow. I know this seems insane, but the horribleness of leaning over the tub scrubbing and getting tired while getting my clothes all wet and skin burned by caustic chemicals - I couldn't face it. For months now. Famously. Good thing I have a guest bathroom as well and have been keeping on top of that. Might sweep the floor Saturday. Mirror Sunday. It will then be time to start over, like painting the Harbour Bridge, but at least I won't have to hide my secret bathroom shame. I could have someone look at it and not judge me.

How did it get this bad?

Tonight, nothing, actually. Leftovers for dinner and dishes left around. Watched the director's commentary for Wall-E and was inspired by his brilliance and skill and expertise and quest for excellence, and the great team he had around him and the time they take and the hard work, and I was inspired. But I didn't practice guitar more. I didn't sing. I didn't write. I didn't clean any more of the bathroom, or do dishes or laundry or anything. I've kind of checked in here. And now I'm going to bed.

There's a house I want. My parents both drove by it when they were visiting and seemed kind of excited and supportive. This is insane for them to be doing, because I don't have any money at all to put down, and don't have my finances under control enough to take it on as a responsibility. But I really want it, so I plan to set up an appointment with the loan person at my bank to see how far away I am from a mortgage (if she just cackles with laughter I might reconsider the leave town and live in flats forever vagabond option). But I am allowing myself to imagine it, and almost to want it. But then tonight I was thinking about raising children and having them take their first steps (big part of Wall-E), and thought, "When we have our kid, I can teach them this way..." and then caught myself. I am allowed to experiment with allowing myself to want a mortgage. It is not an option any more to want babies. I forget this.

So part of the work of taking an active stance and making happiness a practice and an attitude is thinking hard about which desires I'm going to allow and then work to actualize - which bits of unhappiness and dissatisfaction are on the list of things to focus on and fix, and which are just part of permanent reality. S. is gone. Australia is in the past. I have hit high middle age as a single person in a town where I have no close friends. I need reading glasses now. My teeth are going back crooked to how they were before the braces. These things are part of reality and can't be changed (well, maybe the teeth can, but only with additional painful orthodontia). But I am not cursed to be lonely and alone forever - there must be a way to connect with people (analog people, not all of you - not like the people on the space ship in Wall-E with their screens). And I am not enslaved by my work so I can't have time to keep my house up. Or get great at guitar or sing in public. And maybe I even deserve to carve out some time to really do the gym thing seriously again, get a proper trainer and really push myself and do it, so that I could be a pageant babe (was watching reality TV last night), or if not a pageant babe or swimsuit model, at least that person again who makes people stop in the hallway and say, "Wow! You look great! Have you been working out?"

Which things to want, which things to work hard on even tho they're not fun and the payoff is down the track, how early to get up, how hard to push myself.

I need to meditate on all of this stuff.

But in the meantime, the sink in my bathroom and the shelves in the tub where the shampoo bottles sit are clean, and I am starting to crack the mystery of bending.

Baby steps.

Rules for fiction work as rules for life as well

Don't use lots of vague psychobabble words. Don't stick to platitudes or industry jargon that doesn't actuallymean anything.

Illustrate what you're trying to say with concrete particulars. Describe specific objects and occasions using descrptions based in physical reality.

So not, like, "I was so depressed, sitting there."

Maybe more like, "The snail started up the side of the crushed Pepsi can, and I saw that it had two concentric dark rings, in the design on the shell on its back. "

House a Home

Lately I've been catching myself glancing around at my possessions and thinking, "I made this. I built this whole thing from scratch, all by myself. "

My couch, my bedroom furniture, my great car - who would loan me enough money to get such a nice car? - I have built it all from scratch, all by myself.

Unrealistic Cinderella fantasies

I know that if I rushed into a dalliance, it would be a few hours of bliss - that feeling of leaving your body and becoming interconnected and time stopping and all that - followed a couple of days later by a lifetime's worth of horrible. Guilt, revulsion, anger, irritation, regret, etc. Just like all the last dalliances ended up. I know that's not worth it.

And I know that if I rashly proposed marriage, said hey, I have a good job, just marry me, we could do this, join your life to mine here and everything will be great, I know it wouldn't be great. I know that it would end up just like Dustin Hoffman and what's-her-name in the back of the bus at the very end of The Graduate. Oh my god, what have we done.

I choose to ignore these incontravertible facts. My desire goes ahead and desires an unending eternity of the first bit, the in-love bit, before it all goes bad. I want that, want that, want that. I don't really believe it's possible, with the front part of my brain, but the rest of me decides to want it. Like a drug.

Probably just the recent full moon.

I should probably write some songs. All songs are about exactly this.

Time Lord

My horoscope at the moment on Free Will says I should "ask yourself what three things you could do to stop fighting time and start loving it better."

One whole set of things has to do with not having enough time to do the things I want to/should every day - not exercising, practicing singing or practicing guitar enough, also not sleeping enough in the first place, and I can't quite work out where all the time is going.

The other whole set of things has to do with patience for things that are bad now but will be good sometime in the future. I will be able to play the Freebird solo. We will be working on our second projects with all these new agencies, not our first ones. I will have a job description and objectives, and feedback. My sister will live closer by and will be realizing her dreams. And I will see him again.

I'm not sure what I can do to stop fighting any of these things, but will meditate on it and see what I come up with.

Sympathy (not Empathy)

• I've never survived a flood.
• I've never been in a serious earthquake.
• I've never been so broke that I had to sleep at work and couldn't afford to buy breakfast or cigarettes.
• I've never been a smoker, so I've never tried to quit.
• I never had to cut all ties with a parent for my own self-preservation.
• I was never a child of divorce.
• My parents never had any boyfriends or girlfriends that I had to meet.
• I am not a single parent.
• I have not raised teenagers.
• I have never sent a kid off to college.
• My people have never been nearly eradicated through wartime genocide.
• Shots never rang out in any street where I lived (a few blocks over sometimes, but not in my actual street).
• No one was ever burned or shunned or discriminated against or given shock therapy for having the same sexual orientation as me.
• I have been divorced, near enough, but there were no little kids involved (one kid, his, was pretty big and more or less unaffected by the whole thing), and I wasn't betrayed when he went off with an old girlfriend until a good amount of time afterward.
• My spouse never worked in another city for an extended period of time.
• I have never battled cancer (touch wood and thank God on that one).
• I never worried that my child might be autistic.
• I've never broken any bones.
• I've never lost any limbs.
• I've never been in weather colder than about -20F.
• I've never had my brain poisoned from a zombie fish chemical.
• I have, though, had to argue with the government about money. And lost, in the end, in fact.
• I don't have back problems.
• I've never turned 50 (I do hope to one day, though).
• People have died, sure, but never my landlord.
• My spouse did not die. My kid never had to attend grief camp.
• I can afford the guitars I want.
• I don't share custody with anybody.
• The quarterback of my team who was a beloved hero to me since childhood never retired and then ended up playing for my arch rival team, and then beating us.
• I never had to sleep in a park because I missed the last train.
• I don't ever have to listen to the Grateful Dead, if I don't want to.
• I've never had two jobs at once, much less three.
• I got to do my degrees full-time, except for the distance computer one which doesn't really count.
• I have been long-term-unemployed, but am not at the moment. I have been downsized but wasn't this last time. I have worked in a dying industry but don't at the moment.
• I haven't hit a deer or run my car into the ditch in the snow. Touch wood on that one too.
• No rheumatoid arthritis yet, vision fine except for middle-aged myopia, hearing pretty good.
• I never had to kick a smack habit. No hot shot ever killed me, I never overdosed and had to go to the hospital. And this never happened to a partner, although it did to a friend.
• I did once have quite a bit of weight to lose, but only 20 lbs (9 kilos), and touch wood I've kept it off since.
• No medical condition prevents me from travelling to high altitudes.
• I've never had a book manuscript rejected from a publisher (only academic papers and those stopped mattering the minute I left the field).
• I've never been brought up on sexual harrassment charges or discrimination or fraud or negligence.
• I've been locked out of cars, houses, work, but never in really bad weather.
• I've never been stuck in an elevator.
• I haven't eaten a bad oyster (only good ones).
• Never had complications during childbirth, or had to rush a sick baby to the emergency room (I visited one though, and sat by until we knew she was okay).
• Never had a mortgage foreclosed.
• Never had a dog vomit on me, although I've had plenty of homeless people yell senseless things at me as I passed.
• Never had a bank error or ATM error, especially not in their favor.
• Never been mugged.
• Never been pregnant and had to decide, never caught an STD.
• Never had a burn large enough that its size was described as being a percentage of my body.
• I've cried in front of every boss I ever had, but I've never punched a boss.

I don't really understand the difficult things all of you are going through, because the same things haven't happened to me, but I feel for you and send good thoughts.

Unsent letter

I'm at home, still in pyjamas, still haven't showered since Friday morning, haven't left the house at all except to go through the drive-through at Tom's Diner to get a Tominator burger and small order of onion rings (used restraint not to get the Medium, which could feed a small village, but it would have been better to get none at all).

Coma Weekend proceeded as planned but as a result I got nothing done and am feeling bad about myself. And somewhat terrified about my parents coming to visit on the weekend, although it is usually fun to see them.

I was just watching a show on the TLC channel that was about hoarders, people who keep so much junk in their house that all they have is a small path in each room. There were some psychologists working with the people, and usually the problem traced back to some horrible thing in their childhood, and also it does tend to run in families. I was lying on the couch watching this, and if I squinted I could barely tell the difference between the cluttered living room being depicted on the TV and the piles of papers to file and boxes and pictures I've never hung on the walls that were sitting around outside the TV in my own analog living room. I know the boxes drive my Mom crazy. If she tries to "help", there may be tears. It's all part of the dilemma of settling, I think - do I really even want to live in this town? Or this country? (Was pining for Sydney, my old job and the Saturday dialectics, all day today). Or do I really want to live here, but then in a more permanent place, and large enough for all the dumb guitar stuff?

What with all the change at work, there were several people who weren't really friends, not really close friends, but felt like my closest connections there, and they've moved away. My old department has been shattered and we're now reporting up through four different bosses, and I'm sort of glad because there are some things I don't want to be involved with any more like arguing with IT Services about hosting arrangements, but then I'm not part of any team any more. I went home sick on Wednesday last week and didn't even know who to email to tell about it. If I just flat stopped coming in it would probably take people weeks to notice. So that's kind of fucking depressing.

My Mom and sister and I were talking about a genetic aversion to making social plans with people, that comes down from my father's side. Problem is, while my Dad and sister and usually perfectly happy to sit inside their safe cave doing their own thing without interruption, and thrive on just the amount of social engagement that they have, I sadly got extroversion from my Mom's side, so I really miss being in the company of people, although I don't have any skills to go out and meet any of them or get them to play with me.

I miss that every second Saturday I knew there would be a group to go get at least one beer with, in the evening, somewhere walking distance from the Botanic Gardens. Things went bad with a few of the regulars so I'm not sure I would like hanging out with all of them now, but I miss being part of a gang - "Where are we all going now?" Even if the same people weren't free every time, there was always some whacky companionship. I haven't found my tribe here yet. I sat inside all weekend instead of going out to find them. Bah.

I've been a long time single, too. Do I even want a partner any more? Does it squash one's independence too much? But a sly affair, I'll tell you, one of those no strings attached but every Tuesday over lunch kinds of things, that idea has a lot of appeal. Apart from advertising on Craig's List, how does one arrange that kind of thing? Or maybe I don't want that at all because it would just make me feel lonelier. Even the perfect partner and a committed long-term romance and moving in and blending lives together and buying a dog and the whole shebang might just make me feel lonelier just at the moment, because sometimes when you get closer, you just realize how fundamentally we are all separate. I want to meld with someone else and feel whole. You can't. Tough luck. Being human sucks. Go read your Sartre again, bitch, and maybe you'll stop forgetting this and stop wanting what you can't have.

I understand, from reading various news sources, that exercise, sunshine, vegetables and volunteer work are the best cures for this malaise I'm feeling.

There was one period in my life when I went out with another Gemini. And I got to experience first-hand that there are two Geminis - the "out" Gemini, who is the life of the party, a charming raconteur, flashing eyes and quick wit and everyone wants to be near them to listen and to bask in their mercurial sparkle. And then there is "home" Gemini, grumpiest creature alive, who sits in a lump and frowns and shoots down all suggestions from helpful loved ones and although they are zero fun to be around, shout and holler for attention if anyone tries to sneak away to more pleasant environments. This Coma Weekend Ellen is definitely "home Gemini". Grump grump grump. Poor poor me. Nothing will ever be good again, and no one cares. Bah.

I amuse myself now. I need to go listen to that John Lee Hooker clip again and realize that I already have everything I need. Every day is a fucking gift. Jesus loves me, this I know. Shantih, shantih, shantih.

Chickens and Eggs

I was very tired from not getting enough sleep during the week, so I scheduled a relaxing weekend of lying around with no plans, but was I having trouble sleeping in the first place because I wasn't getting enough exercise?

Or perhaps from sleeping in on the weekends and then trying to get up really early during the week to do guitar practicing and go to the gym? Should I get up the same early time every day, even on weekends? Would that be enough hours?

Or am I tired maybe from not spending all weekend growing organic food and canning and preparing nutritious organic local-grown hippy meals?

Or would it be better to stop beating myself up about not cooking and not buying lots of fresh groceries all the time (because they just go off in the fridge because I never have time or energy after work to spend any time preparing anything), and just accept myself as I am, buy the frozen or fast food, and count myself lucky I live in such a country where women can live like this, and devote themselves to work and guitar and being online and not have to be enslaved to running a household and doing "reproductive work" such as feeding and cleaning for others?

Or do I not have any energy after work because I don't cook organic meals for myself?

And should I just hire a cleaning person again, to keep up with the dust and carpets and bathtub grime (I would be put in jail immediately if anyone were to see the bathtub grime), or am I perfectly capable of doing it myself and just need to do it? It's not that big of an apartment.

Not to even mention the boxes and the pictures I need to hang up. There's no possible way I can get over that block without some large change of circumstance - moving house, or someone else moving in here, or a million dollar prize offered if I were to get it done, or a grant of an extra month of vacation days from work, or I don't even know what. Why can't I do it?

But I don't want to spend a whole month going through files and organizing the detritus of my past. It's all in boxes, in stasis and equilibrium, not really hurting anyone apart from being an eyesore and slight fire hazard. If I have time, I want to spend it on guitar stuff. I would rather be a rock star than a competent homemaker. Or is it compulsory to do both?

Would it be better to just walk from all of this, with my iPhone and one change of clothes, and reduce my needs down to the minimum and focus on the important things? Would I have more companionship if I were living on the street and riding boxcars on transcontinental freight trains? The wrong kind of companionship? Is that better than none at all?

I'll either go and do another load of laundry or go back to bed. One or the other of those must be the right first thing to do.